Oscar Piastri topped the second free practice session for the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix picking up from where his teammate, Lando Norris left earlier in the day.
Piastri was the slower McLaren driver in the first session on Friday but then improved in the afternoon with the common denominator being McLaren's advantage that does not seem to have been affected by the FIA front wing technical directive.
George Russell was second fastest in the Mercedes, 0.286s behind Piastri while reigning Formula 1 champion Max Verstappen was third fastest in the Red Bull, over three tenths off the pace.
Then came Norris in fourth but with a lap time identical to that of Verstappen but the latter set his first, hence why he was ahead of the Briton.
While McLaren had a huge advantage in terms of peak pace, matters where a bit closer on the long runs with tyre management proving critical as the temperatures will be high and the front left tyres will be given a beating.
Going further in the order, Charles Leclerc was fifth fastest in the Ferrari while Lewis Hamilton was not happy with his car and was down in 11th.
Kimi Antonelli was sixth fastest in the other Mercedes ahead of Fernando Alonso who was seventh while Pierre Gasly was eighth for Alpine.
Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson wrapped up a strong Friday for the Racing Bull, ninth and tenth respectively. Both Williams did not make the top ten.
Conclusions? Well it is always tricky, but McLaren do not seem to be affected by the technical directive while we need to see what Red Bull will come up with overnight. They always improve. McLaren might not be running away with it despite their early advantage.
Ferrari are not in a happy place while Russell's second place may be just in qualifying trim. In race trim, that Mercedes will suffer in the heat.
Buildup towards FP2
The first practice session took place in quite hot conditions, something Mercedes will definitely not be happy about as their W16 doesn't function properly in such conditions.
But the focus was mostly on the new front wing regulations and the effect they might have on the pecking order and from what we saw in FP1 nothing changed.
McLaren remained fastest with Norris while Piastri's fifth place is most probably an outlier and down to the program he may have been running.
And with McLaren fastest, Verstappen was chasing with Hamilton and Leclerc in the Ferrari jus behind him, and while the gap to Norris was considerable, we know Red Bull are usually slow to start their weekend and find more performance from Friday to Saturday.
What will make matters trickier to judge is the fact the Red Bull were always expected to be closer to McLaren in Barcelona - without the rules change - as the high and medium speed corners at this track will flatter their RB21.
All the regular driver will be back in the cars this session as Esteban Ocon gets his car back from Ryo Hirakawa while Alex Albon joins the action after sitting out FP1 in favor of Victor Martins.
FP2 Session Highlights
Track temperatures remained as hot at the start of FP2 as they were in FP1, 48 degrees Celsius, while air temperature was also high at 31 degrees.
The temperatures were so hot that some of the drivers were using the driver cooling vests that will be mandatory in 2026.
All the drivers went out on the Medium tyres while - as was the case in FP1 - Lance Stroll and Franco Colapinto went the other way and started on the Hards.
Piastri was soon informed that his sector one was purple to which he jokingly responded that he should drift the car more often. Apparently he wasn't feeling the speed...
However, Hadjar had other issues and they were with the traffic which he labeled a "joke".
Speaking of traffic, Russell had a moment with a Williams while Alonso expressed his dismay with Hamilton.
Oliver Bearman was lucky not to end up in the barriers as he lost control of his Haas in Turn 3 and made a full spin and kept going. Verstappen ran wide at Turn 11.
20 minutes into the session, the Haas of Bearman was up on the stands as they had to check the floor of the car. Stroll was also out of his car after complaining about his car.
Stroll said over the radio: "It's so bad!" and his engineer asked for more details but the comprehensive answer he received from the driver was: "I mean, just...look, you know?"
"I see," the engineer responded apparently seeing something in the data.
It turned out that Aston Martin changed the seat and put a new front wing on the #18 AMR25.
With less than 40 minutes remaining, Russell was the first driver to bolt on the Soft tyres with Antonelli doing the same. Russell improved his time which was the best at the moment. His teammate was second.
The other driver soon followed suite and started the first qualifying simulations of FP2. Verstappen went second while Norris went third but with an identical time to the Dutchman.
Yuki Tsunoda was complaining about the amount of sliding he was suffering. He radioed: "This sliding I have is not normal, mate. It's crazy."
The engineer asked: "Same feeling as FP1, both axles?", only for the Japanese driver to say: "Yeah literally, just sliding around, no grip."
Leclerc had a couple of sliding moments in Turns 7 and 9 which meant he was fifth while Piastri went to the top.
Hamilton down in 11th place radioed: "The car is not drivable mate."
But then, with 19 minutes to go, the long runs were on. Some drivers opted for the Mediums while other were on Softs.
Verstappen did a race simulation on the Medium and then pitted to continue on the Softs. Leclerc did the same. Norris started on the Soft and switched to Mediums.
Verstappen and Leclerc had a mini-race while on their runs, but the former was not impressed.
The session was concluded with practice starts.
Spanish GP FP2 Classification
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